


What Can't Be Cured

by axoleritath



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Grief, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Loss, Rescue, more tags as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9615083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axoleritath/pseuds/axoleritath
Summary: Prompto is gravely injured after an encounter with Magitek. Triage does not go smoothly. Neither does anything else.





	1. Chapter 1

“Everyone alive?” Noctis wheezed. He flicked his arm and his sword shattered into motes of light, drifting away in the warm breeze. His clothes clung to his back and he flapped the hem of his shirt to cool his chest. Physical activity in this heat was the worst.

“All's well over here,” said Ignis. Gladio grunted in assent. He sounded winded, though not as much as everyone else.

One voice was conspicuously absent.

“Where’s Prompto?” Noctis looked over one shoulder and then the other. The area looked like every other part of western Duscae to him. Sweat prickled at his eyes as he let his gaze wander over the boulders, low foliage, scorched ground, and the scattered remains of broken Magitek soldiers in all directions. There had been a lot more of them than in previous encounters and the field of debris was expansive. But as far as he could see, the three of them were the only ones still standing after the fight. 

Disquieted, Noctis raised his voice to carry over the landscape. "Prompto?"

Silence. And then:

“...oct...”

Noctis squinted. It was such a small noise he wasn't sure exactly where it came from or even if he had really heard it at all. He looked over at Ignis and Gladio, whose backs were already to him as they searched areas of their own. If they had heard the sound then they didn't show it.

“Prompto?” Noctis asked again, sweeping his eyes over the crumpled armor and mechanical limbs. He picked a direction and carefully worked his way around the remains. Smoke boiled from the corpses in dark, greasy pools. Red sparks like dying embers swirled around Noctis' ankles, disturbed by his passage. Eventually these metal warriors would sublimate into nothing, leaving a smear of soot and flaking rust as the only proof they ever existed. But in the meantime Noctis tried not to breathe the fumes as he waded through their remains.

He heard the noise again, a small croak. “Noct.”

It was louder this time, definitely not just his imagination. Was he getting closer? He scanned the area, looking for a sign. Then, he found one: at the edge of the chaos lay several crumpled armors shredded by bullet holes. Thick ropes of oily smoke coiled from each fresh perforation. They beckoned to Noctis like long, waving fingers.

The soldiers lay in a tangled heap of limbs, their green metal faces vacant and serene as ever. Noctis always found them creepy. Even in death, their jointed metal fingers twisted around the handles of heavy axes that were now, like everything, lightly dusted with an ashy residue of the smoke that churned from their bodies. There was something different about the edge of one of these weapons, though. An unusual luster. Noctis looked closer. Under the grime was a smear of ...something. Something wet and alarming, a mark nearly as broad as Noctis’ palm that coated the blade like a high water mark. His blood went cold.

He forced back a mounting sense of panic and raked his eyes over his immediate surroundings. Prompto had to be close. Noctis just had to _find him._ His eyes latched on something dark. A boot. Two boots. Also, legs. The rest was obscured by a large bush. Noctis jogged over and the rest of Prompto came into view.

Prompto was on the ground, reclining from the waist up against a low, sloping stone. His legs stretched out in front of him. His face looked waxy and his hair clung to the sweat on his forehead and cheeks. His arms were crossed over his waist with what looked like an uncomfortably tight grip. He was trembling.

Prompto cracked his eyes open and met Noctis' stricken stare. Prompto's mouth made the shape of Noctis’ name but no sound emerged.

“ _Ignis! Gladio!_ ” Noctis shouted over his shoulder, his voice sharp with distress. The others were far away on the other side of field of wreckage, but he saw them whirl toward him at the sound of his call.

With reinforcements now on the way, Noctis knelt beside Prompto, his hands out and hovering uselessly over him, unsure of where to even begin. The blood had drained from Prompto's already-pale skin, leaving it a sickly, ghastly white. His body was racked with shakes and spasms, muscles clenching and recoiling in time with his shallow breathing. Prompto's forearms were pressed tight against his belly but Noctis could see blood seeping out around them, the red in brilliant contrast against the white skin.

Noctis swallowed. “Let me see it." When Prompto didn't immediately comply, he gently pried the clammy arms away by the wrists.

Noctis couldn't get a clear view of the damage. The shirt itself was a mess. The dark fabric was wet and heavy, the normally gray geometric lines now vibrant red on black. The shirt was cut nearly all the way across. There was no point saving this. Noctis peeled the wet shirt away from Prompto’s skin with one hand and, in a flash of light, summoned a dagger in the other. He slid the blade edge-up under the fabric and split the shirt from collar to hem with a few quick jerks of the knife. _Like gutting an animal,_ he tried very hard not to think. He dismissed the knife, then exhaled and steeled himself. He pressed the shirt open and forced himself to look down.

The wound was a crisp line straight across the belly. It started left of Prompto's navel and stretched all the way to his right side, curving around almost to his back. It clipped his lower right ribs on the way. Blood chugged out steadily now that arms weren’t holding it in. If the smear on the axe had been an indication of the depth of the wound -- no, Noctis wasn’t going to think about it. Already he could hear a loud hissing in his ears and his peripheral vision was growing dim. His stomach was doing gymnastics trying to get free. He forced himself to breathe and the smell hit him like a punch, so strong he could almost taste it. _Keep it together,_ he thought, both to himself and to Prompto, who now had his eyes squeezed shut and his head back against the stone, his teeth bared in a grimace. Prompto, too, seemed to be working hard to keep breathing.

Noctis was distantly aware of the arrival of Ignis and Gladio. Ignis went rigid for a moment before he wheeled on Gladio and commanded him to fetch the water bottles and extra curatives from the Regalia. Ignis' carefully moderated voice did little to disguise the sense of urgency. It didn't matter. It was already clear to everyone how bad this was.

Noctis could feel the vibrations of Gladio’s feet as he galloped back to the car, bounding over fallen MTs. Ignis knelt across from Noctis on Prompto’s other side, fishing inside his own jacket for a potion.

“ _Put pressure on the wound, Noctis._ ” Ignis’ voice was like an impact. Noctis startled and reality clapped violently back into place. Yes. The bleeding. There was so much of it, wow. The wound was so long he had to place his hands end to end to cover at least most of it. Warm blood welled up around his fingers as he leaned into the wound. Prompto jerked under him and choked on a yelp. One of his hands, still wet with his own blood, latched onto to Noctis’ forearm. Noctis wasn’t sure if this was an attempt to pry his arm away or brace himself against the pain. It didn't matter either way -- Prompto's grip was weak and his fingers were shockingly cold.

Ignis found the hi-elixir he'd been searching for. He looked at Noctis. “Is the wound deep?”

“I think so,” Noctis replied.

“ _Then put your weight into it._ ” Ignis tugged the cork out with a loud pop, as if for emphasis. “Apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding all the way through, not just on the skin.”

Noctis knew he was right. He’d learned enough through Ignis’ first aid drills to understand it all in theory. But the reality of it felt like a fist around his throat. He swallowed thickly. Seeing Prompto already in this much pain was hard enough. Noctis could see the muscles working in Prompto's jaw, sweat beading on his forehead. Saw his chest rocking with every rapid, irregular gasp. _Sorry in advance,_ Noctis thought, and bore down steadily with all his strength.

Prompto eyes snapped open and he thrashed under Noctis’ palms like a dying fish on a cutting board. He clawed at Noctis' hands and wailed piteously with tears on his cheeks. Noctis' felt his own heart break clean in two. Prompto drew a long, wheezing gasp, shuddered, then collapsed bonelessly back onto the stone with a dull thump. His face went slack. His limp arms flopped to the ground. Then he was still.

 _Did I kill him? Did I kill him?! Oh GODS, did I kill him?!_ Noctis thoughts screamed in his head. If he hadn't been searching so desperately for signs of life he might have missed it: a weak, erratic pulse fluttered under his palms like it was trying to escape. Prompto was still breathing, somehow. Noctis reminded himself to do the same. Right beside him, Ignis was yelling something into Prompto's face but Noctis couldn't seem to hear it over the ringing in his own ears.

Ignis put a hand on Prompto's cheek and rocked his gray face upward. With the other hand he put the lip of the bottle to Prompto's teeth. “Open _up!_ ” he yelled again.

There was no reaction. Prompto’s lidded eyes were glassy and unseeing, though tears still flowed freely. Ignis took matters into his own hand and slipped his gloved thumb between Prompto’s teeth. He pried Prompto’s mouth open just enough to drizzle hi-elixir between his lips, relying on his body’s natural reflexes to swallow it. Half the elixir spilled out of Prompto's mouth and across his face. Ignis had to release him after a moment and Prompto's head flopped to the side. There followed a quiet fit of shallow coughs in response to what elixir he had aspirated. Each cough caused new gouts of blood to roll over Nocts’ fingers. Prompto’s arms flopped feebly against the ground as if struggling to defend himself.

After a moment Noctis could feel the wound growing warmer under his hands. It seemed that at least some of the elixir had made it down. Prompto's breathing became increasingly audible. He was recovering enough strength to start fighting back. Not against his injury, but against Ignis and Noctis -- the obvious source of his suffering.

“Another one, Ignis,” Noctis encouraged, though Ignis was already a step ahead of him with a new bottle of hi-elixir already uncorked. This time he slipped his hand under the nape of Prompto’s neck and gently leaned his head forward. Hopefully Prompto wouldn’t breathe so much of it this time. Ignis tipped the hi-elixir into Prompto’s mouth and Noctis could see Prompto’s throat working fitfully to keep up.

This time, mercifully, more elixir got in him than on him. Prompto was becoming lucid enough to start roiling with pain. His pedaling heels dug grooves into the dirt. His fingers clawed at the ground. His breath game in loud, rasping gasps that twisted into sobs and fat tears rolled into his ears. Ignis held him down with a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to brace him, to help him endure. Or at very least to keep him from hurting himself. There was an expression of deepest sympathy on Ignis' face.

The wound under Noctis’ hands seared with heat. He cautiously eased up on the pressure. The bleeding had slowed dramatically, thank the gods. Noctis reflected on his own experiences with hi-elixir in the past. He thought it felt like biting insects made of pure fire shredding him from the inside. New flesh grows with explosive speed. Muscle fibers twist and twine back together. Damaged nerves mend and reactivate all at once. It is a bright, electric sensation that left stars in his vision and made him want to tear off his own skin. And the burning -- _the burning...!_

Noctis had only ever experienced minor injuries compared to this, when it had been enough to just douse the wound with elixir. He had never even witnessed something so serious to merit actually drinking it. He could only imagine what poor Prompto must be feeling, but with the look of raw, excruciating agony on his face he had an idea.

Reverberations in the ground signaled Gladio’s reappearance. He was panting and had half a case of water bottles rattling around in their cardboard tray, still tangled in plastic packaging. Loose potions and elixirs had been jammed in the extra space, as well as a few phoenix downs wrapped in paper.

"Good timing," said Ignis. "That was my last one. A remedy, please, Gladio." Gladio wrangled a remedy out of the plastic and placed it in Ignis' waiting hand, then knelt by Prompto’s legs.

Ignis took his hand off Prompto's shoulder to pop open the remedy. "This may help with the pain," he explained, and poured it gently over Prompto's writhing midsection. Noctis could feel it fizzle like a carbonated beverage as it washed over his hands. It soaked immediately into his skin and was gone, leaving cool tingle behind. It had no other noticeable effect on him, of course, but after just a few moments his friend's violent convulsions started losing their power.

Prompto seemed to be gradually calming down. His breath came in deep, heaving rasps, like his lungs had suddenly rediscovered air. Noctis could feel the scorching heat from Prompto’s skin, which was a good sign. It meant the elixir was working. He slowly eased his hands off Prompto’s abdomen. The entire torso was covered in blood but fortunately none of it seemed to be actively flowing. Noctis plucked a water bottle out of the crook of Gladio’s elbow and cracked it open. The water was warm from being in the trunk of the car but Noctis still hoped it was refreshing enough. He sluiced it over Prompto’s skin to help ease the heat and wiped at the blood with his free hand. As the blood washed away, Noctis could see a new stripe of fresh scar tissue, purple and shiny against the white skin. It matched Gladio’s.

Everyone waited quietly as Prompto slowly came around. After a few moments, Prompto lifted his head from the stone and cautiously looked down over his own chest. He took a breath, then another. He pressed his mouth into a straight line and lay his head back again. Tears streamed down his face but this time they were from relief.

Ignis was the one to break the silence. “Have some water,” he suggested. He tenderly maneuvered Prompto into a more upright sitting position and held an open water bottle near his mouth. Prompto took a moment to steady his breathing and accepted the drink. A few sips rapidly turned to desperate gulping, as if Prompto abruptly realized how thirsty a near-death experience could make a person. Ignis had to moderate the angle of the bottle so Prompto didn’t drown himself. Noctis was just happy to see Prompto taking a more active role in drinking this time. You don’t appreciate this sort of thing until you watch one friend hold the other friend down and pour potions down his throat against his will.

“Welcome back,” Noctis said.

Prompto caught his breath after draining the bottle then looked at each of them in turn. His hair was matted with sweat and dirt and his cheeks were sunken. His eyes were heavy and dark. Noctis thought he looked more exhausted than was possible for a human being to look. 

“Let’s never do that again,” said Prompto. Tears still dangled from his lashes.

Everyone seemed to feel the tension finally begin to drain away. Gladio clapped his hand against Prompto’s calf a few times. “You had us scared for a minute, buddy.”

Prompto’s gaze drew inward. His voice was quiet and a little raw when he said “...I was scared too.”

“How do you feel now?” Ignis asked.

“Sore... I feel like my whole body’s been trampled by garulas.”

“I’d like you to drink an extra hi-potion,” Ignis said, holding his hand out in Gladio’s direction, “for good measure.” Gladio rummaged the item out of the collection of bottles, uncorked it, and passed it to Ignis. “it may help you feel back to normal a bit sooner.”

Prompto looked at Ignis with an expression that said, _haven’t I already been through enough?_

Ignis pressed it into Prompto’s hand and said “Bottoms up.”

To Noctis’ secret relief, Prompto managed to raise the hi-potion to his own lips this time, though it took two shaky hands working together to do it. Judging by Prompto’s expression, the potion was a lot more tolerable than an elixir. He still pulled a face once he’d finished.

“There you go, that was easy,” said Ignis. “Think you can stand?”

“Yeah,” Prompto replied. Ignis, with his arm still behind Prompto’s back, helped rock him forward as Noctis took his arm to help pull him up. Prompto’s eyebrows snapped together as his body suddenly rediscovered his abdominal muscles. He wheezed. “Nope,” he corrected himself, sagging back onto the stone. “Just kidding.”

Noctis released him and looked to Gladio. “It’s all you, big guy.”

“What would you guys do without me?” Gladio asked, handing Noctis the package of water bottles. His face was easy with his usual self-confidence and he traded places with Noctis at Prompto’s side.

Gladio leaned forward and drew Prompto's arm over his neck by the wrist. Prompto could see where this was going but was helpless to stop it. All he could do was look undignified as Gladio eased his huge forearms under Prompto’s back and knees. Gladio hoisted him up off the ground and started carrying him toward the car. Ignis and Noctis followed on either side.

“You weigh nothing!” Gladio smirked.

“Ugh, this is so embarrassing,” Prompto whined, his voice weak and raw. He let his head hang backward, the picture of unnecessary hardship.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” offered Noctis. “Maybe in the future you’ll try a bit harder to keep your insides from becoming outsides.”

“That’s not fair.” Prompto protested, “Gladio got a big gross scar so why can’t I?” He lolled his head forward look Gladio in the face. “Actually, that whole experience _sucked._ Is that what it was like for you? When you got the one on your chest?”

“More or less. But I wasn't such a crybaby about it.”

“He was,” Ignis interjected, adjusting his glasses.

Gladio scowled. “See if I tell you anything ever again.”

When they reached the car, Gladio maneuvered Prompto into a sitting position on a nearby boulder. He kept one hand on Prompto’s shoulder to keep him from toppling over. “Time to lose the shirt,” he said.

Prompto looked confused just long enough to actually look at his clothes, as if he was noticing them for the first time. His shirt hung in rags from where it had been split horizontally, then vertically, exposing his whole torso. The tattered cotton had grown stiff from the soaked blood while other parts of it were still soggy with water. Prompto’s sleeveless jacket was intact but it was stained with dark blotches from front to back.

“I’m trying out a new look,” Prompto said.

“You look like a hot mess.”

Prompto made trembling finger guns. “But at least I’m still hot.” His face was pale and sweaty and he looked like he was going to be sick.

Ignis appeared with Prompto’s spare shirt in hand. It was still folded from being packed in the duffel bag in the trunk of the Regalia, and since they had just done laundry yesterday it even smelled clean for a change. The maroon tank top was warm from an afternoon spent baking in the car.

Noctis helped ease the ruined clothes off Prompto’s shoulders and Ignis delicately worked the clean garment back on. Gladio kept him from falling over. None of these actions were difficult for anyone except Prompto, who winced and grit his teeth with every motion. At least the smooth cotton felt soft against his tender new skin. Maybe life wasn’t completely bad.

...until he saw Noctis cramming his old clothes unceremoniously into a garbage bag. “Hey!”

“Hey what?” Noctis was unsympathetic. “You gonna wear these again?” 

“The jacket is not so bad, right?” Prompto argued. “It’s black. The stains won’t show after we wash it.” Ignis looked shocked, then offended. “Oh, come on," Prompto continued. "It took me forever to sew all those patches on.”

Noctis looked down at the jacket in his hand and moved his thumb aside to examine a patch. It was a leather rectangle just under the point of the collar’s right lapel. There were words stamped in that Noctis had never bothered to read until now: 

“ _‘It’s a beautiful day. Now watch some bastard fuck it up.’_ ”

Noctis paused. He tipped his gaze up at the gloriously blue sky, then rolled his head onto his shoulder to give Prompto a sideways look.

Prompto’s eyes enlarged theatrically. “ _A prophecy…_ ” he stage-whispered.

"We can work out the matter of your clothing later," Ignis interrupted. "For now, I'd like us to make haste back to Lestallum. Gentlemen, if you would," he gestured to the car.

Noctis wadded the jacket into the garbage bag and slung it into the trunk. Prompto once again found himself being carried car-ward by a large man. He was begrudgingly coming to terms with it.

Gladio poured Prompto into the front passenger seat and lashed him into position with the safety belt. Noctis and Gladio loaded themselves into their usual places in the back seat. A moment later they heard the trunk slam closed and Ignis reappeared at the driver's side. As he climbed into his seat, Ignis reached over and nestled a leftover bottle of Jetty’s soda in Prompto’s slack hands. Like everything else from the car, it was warm.

“Drink, if you feel capable.” Ignis twisted the keys in the ignition and the Regalia rumbled to life. “The sugar and fluids will help tide you over until we get to a clinic. Plus," Ignis looked at him over the rim of his glasses, "it will prevent you from turning into a toad.”

“You should drink it. You look green.” Noctis was joking, but Prompto looked like he had aged twenty years in one afternoon.

Prompto ignored him and was trying not to whine. "A clinic?” he looked at his stomach, as if he could see his new battle damage through his shirt. “Aren’t I already healed?”

"You left quite a lot of yourself behind out there, Prompto." Ignis flicked at the turn signal, checked his blind spot, and pulled out onto the road. "Curatives put you back together but they won't replace what you lost. And I suspect your current cheerful disposition is mainly due to the stimulating effect of the drugs. That won't last."

Prompto sagged in his seat. "Good. Something to look forward to."

Gladio reached over the the back of the seat and gripped Prompto's shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. "How about looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight?"

"Yes. Gods," Prompto sighed and let his head hit the headrest. "I've never been so tired in my life."

Gladio chuckled and pat Prompto's shoulder, then leaned back into his seat and put his palms on his knees. He understood what Prompto was feeling better than anyone else.

Noctis watched the scenery fly past. He wasn't sure at first, but he was starting to notice the details: the roar of the engine was louder than usual. The tires squeaked against the road when making turns. His back pressed into the upholstery with unusual gravity. Ignis had sounded calm when he spoke but the motion of the Regalia betrayed him. Noctis had a feeling they would make it to Lestallum in record time. They weren't out of the woods yet. 

The sun was still high and bright in the dazzlingly blue sky. Few days were as beautiful as this. In the Regalia, the canopy was down and the wind felt refreshing as it dried the sweat from their clothes. Prompto's cheek rested on the edge of the car door. He was fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfic! I have no idea what I'm doing! ヽ(　･∀･)ﾉ Constructive criticism is welcome if you feel like it.
> 
> Huge thanks to [Xanthos_Samurai](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Xanthos_Samurai), who held my hand and gave me a lot of great advice.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wakey wakey,” said a gruff voice.

Prompto cracked his eyes open and winced at the light. The afternoon sun had turned the world into a jumbled collection of stark, contrasting shapes, making him question how much he felt like looking at it. Perhaps not that much, he thought, and scrunched his eyelids back together as if to prove the point.

A shadow loomed over him and he felt a few hearty pats against his cheek. Now he was tired _and_ annoyed. Prompto huffed a long groan of protest.

“C’mon. Rise and shine,” said the shadow, which resolved itself into Gladio.

Prompto would concede to only one of those things, maximum. He peeled himself heavily off the inside of the car door, then wobbled into an upright position and looked around, squinting and bleary-eyed. He and Gladio were alone at the end of what could generously be called a narrow parking lot and otherwise might have been described as the remains of road that had given up trying to go anywhere. Tired-looking cars were crammed up against the sidewalks at every angle, vaguely aligned with the suggestion of paint that had once indicated parking spaces.

The lot terminated in a loop that was something like a loading bay, which was just big enough to accommodate the Regalia’s wide turn radius. A stubby portico yawned out to greet them, laying out a stripe of shade like a red carpet leading to wide glass doors. The doors were set in a large, concrete building. Its pastel green plaster was sun-bleached and flaking. Though taller than anything else around it, it squatted like a toad against the cliff that hemmed Lestallum in along its southern edge. It swelled to fill all the available space, threatening to consume its neighbors. The spider web of blue and yellow pipes across its face seemed to be the only thing holding it back.

The international symbol of medicine was mounted on the upper half of the building in wrought white metal: the stylized shape of a short stave—more like a wand—topped with a crescent like a backwards “C” that cupped a white circle. Under it was an additional sign that read "Five Horizons General Hospital."

Prompto frowned and rubbed at the imprint the car door left in his cheek. A clinic was a place where you went for a checkup and were free again in an hour. A hospital was a different kind of commitment that he didn’t think he was ready for at this point in his life. He just wanted to go to the hotel and sleep for a few years. A hospital trip looked like a bad afternoon waiting to happen. A _worse_ afternoon.

The glass doors slid apart and Noctis emerged pushing an old folding wheelchair. The plastic wheels clattered across the broken pavement as he made his way to the curb.

“Ignis is getting the paperwork started,” he said in greeting. “Are you feeling any better?”

Prompto took stock of his aches. His head was throbbing pain straight down his neck. He felt weak and vaguely nauseated, and even though he was sweating, the scorching Lestallum heat didn’t seem to permeate any deeper than his skin.

“No,” he said, flatly. The voice that came out of his mouth didn’t even sound like his own.

“Good thing we came here, then,” Gladio said as he opened Prompto’s door for him. With an enormous hand around each of Prompto’s upper arms, Gladio helped Prompto totter out of one chair and into another. At least Prompto didn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being carried into the building, but every jiggle and vibration of the wheels catching in the cracked concrete rattled his aching muscles. For once he couldn’t even muster up the energy to complain. As Ignis had predicted, whatever cheerful attitude he had maintained before his nap had well and truly evaporated with the drugs.

Beyond the hiss of the sliding glass doors, the reception area was cool and the comparatively dim artificial light was a soothing reprieve from the harsh glare outside. The gray linoleum floor, though scuffed to a degree no amount of polishing could undo, was blessedly smooth under the wheels of his chair.

Ignis turned away from the counter and presented Prompto with a collection of forms on a clipboard, as well as instructions to confirm they were correct. Prompto leafed through the pages, skimming them without sense of purpose. Was this information right? Probably. Prompto vaguely remembered having to fill out medical history forms with his Crownsguard application. He didn’t put it past Ignis to have a copy on his phone, or to have memorized it completely. Perhaps Prompto would wonder about this later when his sense of curiosity returned. He shakily scrawled some resemblance of his signature on the appropriate lines and handed the papers back.

Prompto was not a patient person on the best of days, and this was just about as far from the best of days he had ever been. Every time the nurse appeared and called a name he thought that surely this time it would be his. Not that he was in a hurry for whatever was about to happen, but the waiting room was just Limbo—a loading screen between him and something getting accomplished. He was neither getting medical attention nor leaving this place entirely; neither free of pain nor suffering enough to be seen faster; neither wide awake nor able to sleep... though it turned out Noctis still could, propped against a wall with his jaw slack, like he had trained his whole life to do this.

Everyone else seemed to be passing the time just fine. Gladio occupied himself a book. Ignis took a few minutes to move the Regalia out of the loading zone and into a longer-term parking solution. Prompto didn’t have anything to do except keep waiting, which didn’t seem to be yielding any results so far. He settled for feeling sorry for himself as he watched a sunbeam slowly crawl across the floor.

After he concluded he’d probably die of old age in this room, the nurse finally called Prompto’s name. Gladio swatted Noctis in the chest with the back of his hand as Ignis took the handles of Prompto’s wheelchair. At the wide double doors that led to the rest of the hospital, the nurse looked between them and hesitated before informing them that only one of the them could join Prompto in the exam room.

Prompto looked back at his friends beseechingly.

“I’ll go,” said Ignis, cutting Noctis off before he had a chance to volunteer. Ignis seemed like an appropriate choice of hospital companion and nobody contested him. Noctis shut his mouth.

“You two stay here,” Ignis advised. “I’ll keep you updated.”

“See you guys later, I guess,” Prompto added. The nurse opened the door for them and Ignis pushed Prompto inside.

“We’ll be waiting,” Noctis said after them.

 

* * *

 

The next half hour was a flurry of activity that Prompto only partially understood. During the initial exam, his nurse—a round, pink-cheeked young man with a neatly-groomed beard—measured his vital signs with practiced economy of motion. He clipped a plastic clamp on the end of Prompto’s finger, stuck a thermometer in his armpit, gently crushed his bicep with a blood pressure cuff, timed the rate of his breath and the tempo of his pulse, all without a break in the casual, light-hearted conversation.

Once all his stats were dutifully recorded, Prompto was whisked to a new room with a single bed and given a thin gray hospital gown, some warm socks, and some privacy. Ignis stayed in the room but courteously turned his face to the wall.

Still shaky and weak, Prompto’s attempts to remove his own snug clothing were fruitless. He wasn’t sure why he felt so embarrassed to accept Ignis’ offer of help. He had been allowed to keep his boxers (and his leather bracelet, “for good luck,” Prompto said.) The rest was nothing that Ignis hadn’t already seen through the course of traveling together, like when dunking each other in the clear waters of Galdin Bay or after taking turns in the hotel shower. And everyone had to look at Gladio’s stupid exposed chest daily whether they liked it or not. Maybe it was the intimacy that brought heat to his ears. This was a new level of helplessness he didn’t particularly enjoy. He was grateful, at least, that Ignis didn’t say anything about it as he crouched to remove Prompto’s boots or hooked his thumbs under the band of Prompto’s pants. It was all done with the the normal cool professionalism that Prompto should have come to expect.

At least he could get his new socks on by himself.

Ignis tied the strings of Prompto’s gown in tidy bows at the back of his neck and waist and eased him under the thin blankets of his bed. It was, admittedly, more comfortable than Prompto was expecting. The bed was jointed in the middle and propped him into a relaxed sitting position, which meant he could still keep an eye on everything without sitting fully upright. And, most importantly, it gave him the opportunity to finally disengage his muscles—the ones used for remaining vertical, anyway. The smell of antiseptics and metal kept the tension in his back and shoulders. Even tucked under the covers, he felt exposed under this austere white light.

Once his clothes were neatly folded beside his camera and phone in a basket under the bed, there was a quick rap at the door and the doctor billowed in like a cloud. She was in perhaps her late forties with a heart-shaped face and crow’s feet tugging at the corners of her eyes, which were bright like polished steel. Hair the color of milk tea was piled on her head in a jumble.

Ignis took an unobtrusive seat in a chair in the corner on Prompto’s right. The doctor greeted them both and rolled a stool out from under a counter, then pulled it over to Prompto’s bedside to talk with him face-to-face. She looked over his chart, rattling off the numbers gathered at his intake exam as if Prompto understood the significance of any of them. She skewed her mouth into a thoughtful shape. After a moment she looked up from the clipboard of papers and and asked to see Prompto’s injury.

Reaching under the covers and drawing up the hem of his gown felt like pulling back the curtain to the shittiest prize ever. He had managed to avoid looking at the scar too closely until now, but here it was, in all its hideous glory: puckered and dark, with fresh red bruises blooming on either side, it escaped around the curve of his body and he had to contort himself slightly to find the other end. Goddamn. He had very nearly been chopped in half like firewood. That really _had_ been what dying felt like.

It had been overwhelming. For every haunted automaton that crumpled under his bullets, two more rushed in, axes swinging. His focus was strained, attention pulled in every direction, he twisted and danced out of harm’s way on reflex alone. But there was a limit to how much he could see at once, a limit to how fast he could reload, how fast he could react.

Everything had tenuously been under control until, very suddenly, it wasn’t. As the soldier in front of him collapsed with a screech and a spray of red sparks, one to his right wound up its axe like a baseball bat. Prompto saw the motion out of the corner of his eye, tried to jerk himself away. But it wasn’t enough.

It felt like a punch at the time, just a heavy impact that sent him sprawling. But when he tried to rise he found he couldn’t. There was no time to think, only to shoot, and only when the last of his assailants lay smoking and glittering on the ground did the pain kick in, abruptly and all at once. It was unholy and obliterating. His vision went white. He tried to scream but his lungs didn’t comply. His whole body was in absolute rebellion.

A potion. He needed a potion _immediately._ He wrestled his arm under control and thrust his hand into his pocket. Empty. He tried the other pocket, then the first one again. He tried not to panic, but where was his potion?! Then he remembered: he had used his only potion earlier that day to heal an irritating blister on his ankle. A _blister!_ He had meant to get a new potion from the Regalia but it slipped his mind. He snarled a curse to his own past self through his clenched teeth. The spare potion may as well be on the moon for all the good it did him now.

Prompto’s shirt was already soaked. He gripped his arms protectively across his body in an attempt to physically hold himself together. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he tried to think through the fog of pain. What should he do? He had no potions. As enticing as it sounded to lay there until he passed out, he needed to be proactive before things got any worse. If he didn’t have a potion, he needed to get one or find someone who could. The idea of standing was not an attractive one, but it was time for some fucking bravery.

Keeping his right forearm pressed against his bleeding belly, he drew his shaking left hand up against the stone at his back. He mustered his courage, counted to three, then hoisted himself forward with all his remaining strength. He had barely lifted himself off the ground he felt something shift inside him. Pain exploded through his whole body and his strength vanished like it had been turned off by a switch. He experienced himself collapse heavily back onto the rock—distantly, as if it were happening to someone else. His vision was stars and all he could hear was a loud squeal in his ears. Then his eyes rolled back and for a moment he was gone.

Bit by bit his senses came back online, accompanied by more pulsating, nauseating pain. Prompto vaguely concluded that that was the second dumbest thing he had done today. His face was wet. At some point he had started crying. It seemed like an appropriate time for it, he thought.

If there was anything else to do, Prompto guessed he only had a few moments remaining to try. Already he was getting cold and his extremities felt tingly and alien. Time for the last resort: he drew a loud, rattling breath and wailed for help with everything he had left. It hurt. He cried for Noctis. It _hurt._ He cried for Ignis, for Gladio. Gods above, _it hurt._

Straining for a response, he heard the distant clash of metal and the inhuman shrieks of the Magitek. He could feel the throb of explosions reverberating in his lungs. The battle continued without him and everyone was preoccupied with their own part of it.

Nobody heard him crying.

Dread settled into his bones. He did his best to endure. He kept calling out between waves of agony, even after he could no longer hear his own voice. Part of him wanted to give up, to seek relief in oblivion.

The world rocked around him and turned to liquid. His senses grew distant. It was taking so much effort to breathe.

Oblivion was coming to meet him half-way. There were shadows in his vision, amorphous and meaningless. They expanded to smother and devour him whole.

He didn’t feel much of anything anymore.

He had nothing left to give.

But…

...something incomprehensible was happening.

He was assaulted with smears of color and movement.

Muffled noises, pressure, heat, and a faraway sound of screams (maybe his own?)

He felt _fire_ consume him from the inside out. Finally he had died and this was hell. He was burning to cinders in a boiling lake, all the while rising to the surface like a cork in the ocean. He saw the world rushing toward him behind the rippling sheen of surface tension, distorted and silvery. It split over him and he burst, gasping and breathless, back to reality with a roar in his ears like a tidal wave.

He was on his back. The sky stretching out around him was more vivid than he’d ever seen. The lake was gone but crackles of fire remained under his skin, slipping away into his veins like firework sparks. He was a husk—drenched, exhausted, confused—but alive. Alive and surrounded by three very worried-looking friends.

Prompto had walked the line between life and death this afternoon—a line that was now physically etched in his body like a memento from the afterlife itself. A line that was now being gently palpated by a stranger in a lab coat to see if it still hurt (it did.)

He couldn’t look at this scar anymore. He turned his head and tried to calm his breathing over his heart pounding in his throat. He had been varying degrees of breathless ever since he woke up in the grass and dirt. He wasn’t sure what part was blood loss and what was just some good, old-fashioned fear.

The doctor asked him for details of his injury and first aid. Ignis was able to supply her with most of it. Prompto supplemented the rest with quiet, one-word answers.

At the end of the exam, the doctor pronounced that Prompto would, indeed, be getting the blood transfusion he came here for. Additionally, due to the nature of his injury, he should stay overnight for observation. Gut injuries like his could be messy and complicated. While the elixir had patched up the worst of it, it could do nothing against the likes of misplaced gut flora that may have escaped into every crevasse of his body, lying in wait to wreak havoc when he wasn’t looking. It would be best if they could rule out infection before releasing him back into the wild.

Prompto suddenly felt very heavy. While what she said made sense and was for his own benefit, he didn’t want to spend even another hour in this sterile purgatory. He yearned to be somewhere familiar and safe. Or, at very least, somewhere more comfortable than here—perhaps at the bottom of an ocean trench, for example.

Her business concluded, the doctor blew out of the room and took the conversation with her. Prompto and Ignis sat in silence for a few minutes until the friendly, round nurse came back to take her place, this time with an assortment of items on a metal tray. The nurse made friendly chatter but Prompto wasn’t feeling it. Ignis spoke for the both of them out of politeness.

Soon a rubber tourniquet was tightened over Prompto’s left bicep and the nurse was scrubbing at the crook of his elbow with an alcohol swab. It took all Prompto’s self control not to snatch his arm out of the nurse’s grip, leap out the window, and run away into the blazing Lestallum sunset with his ass hanging out of his hospital gown. If only his stupid legs would hold him up!

The smell of the alcohol made his gorge rise. He looked away and put his fingers of his free hand across his mouth in what he hoped could pass as a pensive or nonchalant gesture. He accidentally made eye contact with Ignis, then guiltily averted his gaze. Prompto felt ashamed of himself. How dare he call himself Crownsguard?

Prompto felt metal against his skin and grit his teeth to stop himself from flinching. In retrospect, maybe it was better that Noctis and Gladio weren’t here after all.

The nurse had clearly done this before and it was only a few moments before Prompto was hooked up to a bag of clear saline dangling from the IV rack beside his bed. With a bit more tinkering, the nurse somehow coaxed a vial’s worth of Prompto’s blood out of the same tube through a process that Prompto aggressively ignored. The blood was a sample, the nurse explained, used to determine the type and quantity of blood for his transfusion. It would take at least an hour to get results so Prompto should get comfortable and take a nap if he felt like it.

Prompto didn’t think it would be possible to fall asleep in this odious, unknown place. But the trick, it turned out, was to be very tired. Tired, and pumped full of painkillers that smothered him like a heavy quilt.

He didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep until it was suddenly an hour in the future and the nurse was bustling back into the room with the normal amount of noise and activity. It took Prompto a few moments of heavy blinking to work the fuzz out of the corners of his brain. There were more forms to sign and vitals to be measured. When the nurse fiddled with Prompto’s IV he could feel the business end moving under his skin. Revolting. He regretted waking up for this.

Apparently the lab results were back and it was finally time to start cramming blood cells back into Prompto’s veins. They would start off slowly for the the first fifteen minutes, during which he should try to stay awake (the nurse cautioned) to watch for for a list of worrying symptoms that would signify a bad reaction to the blood. Prompto was suddenly tense again, as if by magic. He watched the line of red slither from the bag on the IV rack, down the tube, and under the tape at his elbow. _Get in there_ , he thought, _the faster this is over… the faster it’s over._

The nurse bustled back out of the room, leaving Ignis and Prompto alone in silence once more. Ignis was still in the same chair, quietly tapping a message into his cellphone. Prompto sighed and scrubbed at his face with his free hand. He couldn’t move his other arm without the invasive sensation of a tube inside him, so as far as he was concerned, the entire limb was completely unusable.

“Sorry for falling asleep before,” Prompto muttered. “This must be so boring for you.”

“No need to apologize,” Ignis replied, tucking his phone back into his breast pocket. “Sleeping is one of the best things you can do for yourself right now. I’m glad you got some rest.”

“Thanks.” Prompto stifled a yawn. “Man. I can’t believe how tired I am. Or that my entire body hurts instead of just…” he waved his hand around his abdomen in a vague gesture, “this junk.”

“It’s the nature of elixirs.” Ignis said. Prompto didn’t react, so Ignis cocked his head and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Do you know how they work?”

“I’ve never really thought about it before.”

“They possess a kind of supernatural property that accelerates the body’s natural healing processes.” Ignis paused to choose his words. “The power used to heal a wound is innate. It is something your body would do on its own if it had the time and resources. Elixirs force the body to redirect energy to the damaged area and repair it immediately, in a way it couldn’t normally do otherwise. However, the energy used to heal the wound is the same energy used to keep the rest of you alive. In other words, elixir heals part of you while damaging the rest. It’s as if it simply rearranges your injury and disperses it evenly over a larger area. That’s also why we had you drink it instead of just pouring it on—the stomach allows it to circulate quickly through the bloodstream, so the entire body takes up the burden equally instead of keeping it localized.”

Prompto looked at him blankly.

“The worse the wound,” Ignis continued, “the more energy must be used to heal it. With smaller injuries the side effects are not that noticeable because the rest of you can easily take up the slack. You might feel a slight tenderness in the area, perhaps. But with larger wounds, well. The cost to the body is proportional to the amount of healing it must do. It’s as if the flesh simply burns itself out in the effort.”

 _Literally,_ Prompto thought to himself, remembering what it felt like.

Ignis leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Prompto, your wound was quite severe. Now that it is mended, the rest of you must heal to make up for the strain. That’s what the extra hi-potion was for: to help revitalize you, to keep your muscles and organs from shutting down. Using elixirs in such situations can be risky, but I hope you can appreciate that the alternative was… unacceptable.”

Prompto didn’t know what to say, so for a few moments he stared at his lap and said nothing at all. Until today, none of this stuff seemed particularly relevant to him. He had always used healing items liberally, content to not know how they worked, just that they did. He never realized they could have such drawbacks. It simply never occurred to him.

“Does… does that mean I’m still dying?”  
  
“It means you’re still _injured_. But with some food, rest, and substantially more blood, it’s all something you can recover from. That’s an important distinction.”

The covers bunched under Prompto’s fingers as he drew them into fists.

“Ignis, I…” Prompto looked Ignis in the eyes. “Thank you. I don’t think I’d be here if it weren’t for you. Thank you so much for helping me. And not just,” he swallowed, “earlier today, but for being with me in the hospital, too. I’m really glad you’re here.”

Ignis smiled. “Think nothing of it. I’m glad you’re still here too, Prompto.”

Prompto smiled back, then wiped at his eyes with his free hand and cleared his throat. “I need to thank Noct and Gladio, too. Can you pass along my thanks for me?”

“You can tell them yourself in a bit. They’ll be joining us when they’re done with their supper.”

Prompto looked at the wall clock. “I guess it’s getting to be that time, huh? Do you need to eat?”

“I might get something later, after they come back. If that’s alright with you.”

“Of course. I guess I need to figure out my dinner, too.” Prompto looked at the room service menu the nurse had left for him earlier. He still felt queasy. Maybe food would help, but nothing sounded particularly appetizing. He had a difficult time imagining that any of this would be as good as what he had recently become accustomed to.

It took him a while, but by the time he was almost done talking himself into a dinner selection the nurse came back to check on him. They went through the same vitals-checking routine as before, testing and documenting Prompto’s temperature, blood pressure, pulse and respiration rates. With no adverse signs to indicate a reaction to the blood, the nurse increased the flow and cheerfully suggested he’d be feeling better in no time. Prompto couldn’t fucking wait.

The nurse closed the door behind him on his way out, then almost immediately opened it again. He returned with two more people behind him. Prompto felt his heart lighten as Noctis and Gladio crowded into his tiny room. They had barely gotten through their greetings when the nurse interrupted to remind them to keep the group visitation short and not to keep Prompto from his beauty sleep. Then the nurse left again, for real this time.

“Hah, ‘beauty sleep,’” snorted Gladio, “you could use it.”

Noctis elbowed him in the side. “Don’t mind him. What he means to say is that you look terrible.”

“I forgot why I was happy to see you,” said Prompto.

“Aww, don’t be like that. We brought you a present.” Noctis held up a paper lunch bag. “Ignis said you’d be staying the night so we brought you some things.” He made himself comfortable on the rolling stool and plopped the paper bag on the blanket beside Prompto’s hip.

Prompto one-handedly picked up the bag and carefully shook the contents into his lap. Out tumbled various toiletries, his phone charger, and two small packages of chocolate chip cookies. He was secretly very touched.

“Wouldn’t want you to look unpresentable,” Gladio said, pointing to the hairbrush. “There might be a cute nurse on night shift. With your new scar you’ll be a chick magnet.” He winked conspiratorially.

Prompto was suspicious. He’d spent so much time today feeling down about his tender new symbol of failure that he hadn’t even considered that anyone might see it otherwise. He narrowed his eyes. “You really think so?”

“Are you kidding? Scars mean that something couldn’t kill you even though it tried. That’s badass. Why do you think I leave mine hanging out for everyone to see?”

“You never even wore a shirt in the first place,” Noctis protested.

“Damn right. Why would I? Just look at me.” Gladio sniffed loudly. He wore the smuggest face imaginable.

“Now that I have a big scar, do you think I should leave my tanktop off so people can see it?”

Noctis rolled his eyes. “Are you going to get tattoos, too?”

“Do you think it would help?”

Ignis sighed and rose from his chair, flexing his neck. Prompto thought he heard a pop. “Since it sounds like you’re feeling better, I’m going to get some supper. Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?”

“No, thank you. You’ve already been a huge help.”

Ignis looked at Gladio. “We’d best clear out before we get another earful from the nurse. Not enough seats for three anyway. Noctis, would you like to stay this time?”

“Well, I guess if I _have_ to ...”

“That’s the spirit. Gladio and I can get us checked in at the Leville while you visit. Once our affairs are settled, we will return for you. Please stay here until then.”

“The only way Noctis gets to leave is if he takes me with him,” Prompto said.

“That really interferes with my plan to run away and escape all of my responsibilities.”

“Mine too,” said Prompto.

Gladio crossed his arms. “If only all of us could escape our responsibilities. Then I wouldn’t have to look at your dumb faces every day.”

“Please leave, already,” said Prompto.

Gladio opened the door for Ignis. “See you kids later,” he laughed.

 

* * *

 

Prompto’s dinner arrived about fifteen minutes later. It was an uninspiring ham and cheese sandwich on wheat bread, with a side of steamed carrots in what smelled like a ginger sauce. There was box of apple juice to drink and a brownie for dessert.

Prompto picked up a triangle of sandwich, turned it around experimentally, and put it back on the plate. “I was kind of hoping I’d have an appetite by the time this got here.”

“I can help you eat it,” said Noctis, reaching for the brownie.

Prompto chopped at Noctis’ arm with the edge of his hand. “How dare you. Do you know what I had to go through to get that brownie? I nearly died for that. Don’t you touch it.”

“And who rescued you? What do I get out of this?”

“You can have these.” Prompto slid the bowl of carrots in Noctis’ direction. “...Along with my ... _undying_ gratitude.”

Noctis made an unimpressed face, though it was unclear whether that was in response to the carrots or the pun.

“Anyway, what do you need my food for? You already had your dinner and I bet it was better than this.”

“Oh hell yeah. We went to Surgate’s Beanmine. Do you remember it? The place with the curry?”

“The place where Gladio got the spiciest thing on the menu just to prove he could, then couldn’t taste anything for two days?”  
  
“That’s the one. I got the bird-broth rice this time. It had daggerquill breast poached in wine, ginger, and green onions. It may have been some of the juiciest daggerquill I’ve ever eaten, and so tender it just fell apart in my mouth. The skin absorbed all the wine and aromatics, too, so every bite was like a burst of flavor. So tender and smooth...”

Noctis stole a glance at Prompto out of the corner of his eye. Prompto looked transfixed, so Noctis continued. “And the rice! It was cooked with broth instead of water so it was rich and kind of creamy. What’s the term Ignis uses? _‘Full-bodied?’_ The meat was great but the rice was just amazing. And everything was sprinkled with crispy crumbles of peppery fried ginger and garlic, to add these little crunches of flavor. Oh, and there were dipping sauces—one was mostly soy sauce, then there was one with fresh ginger and sesame oil, and a chili lime sauce with minced pineapple. All of them tasted completely different but they all went perfectly with the meat and rice. It was spectacular. I already ate way too much, but I could go for another plate.”

Prompto looked enchanted. He licked his lips and swallowed. “Thanks. I’m hungry now. Not for this, but I’ll take it.” He took a giant bite of sandwich.

 _“Noblesse oblige,”_ said Noctis, with a smirk tugging at one corner of his lips.

“When I get out of here, let’s eat that meal again.”

“That can probably be arranged.”

Instead of watching Prompto chew, Noctis let his eyes wander around the room. It was cramped and spartan; clean, but ragged around the edges. The walls had probably been white a few decades ago but now the paint was a patchwork of scuffs and discoloration. Bare concrete showed through in patches. There was a single window in the far end of the room, parallel to the bed. Its gauzy white curtain strained the angled evening light like cheesecloth.

The room was just big enough to contain the bed, a couple short cabinets, a stainless steel sink, and the rolling platform that was now being used as a table to hold Prompto’s food over his lap. All of the horizontal surfaces in the room were the same gray as Prompto’s blankets and gown. Even the chair in the corner had worn gray upholstery, just like the low stool on which Noctis was sitting.

The only thing with any color in this room was the bag of blood, bright and gemlike as a pomegranate aril.

“How long will you be hooked up to that, anyway?”

Prompto swallowed and followed Noctis’ gaze. “The nurse says each bag takes two hours, and I’m getting two of them, I guess. He says it won’t replace everything I lost but it will help me not feel like I’m about to pass out. And I am definitely looking forward to that. I feel better now that I’ve had a nap and some painkillers but I still feel totally wrung out.”

“If you lost more than two of those then it’s no wonder.”

“For future reference: I don’t recommend it.”

“But you made it look so fun.”

“I don’t remember very clearly, but I heard from Ignis—when he was telling the doctor—about what happened. I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for you guys. So… thanks. For saving me. Thank you, Noct.”

“I’m glad we made it in time. For a minute there I didn’t think we had.”

“You and me both. By the way, can we, maybe, never fight those things ever again?”

“I wish.”

“I’m serious.” Prompto put his sandwich down. “Until today they didn’t seem that scary. Like, I knew they were dangerous, but only in abstract kind of way, like as a concept. It never seemed like anything bad would actually happen to us, not really. And I know we have all lost things to the Empire… our families, our home… but it hasn’t really sunk in for me yet, like it’s all still just an awful dream. It doesn’t feel real.

“But today, when it actually happened…” Prompto balled his hands into fists. “I wasn’t prepared. I was just one second too slow and it nearly ended me. Now it’s suddenly real to me in a way it wasn’t before.” He locked eyes with Noctis. “Holy shit, Noct, those things are _dangerous._ I can’t believe we have even considered fighting them this whole time. We should have been running as fast as possible in the other direction. What were we even _thinking?!”_

Prompto’s eyes fell back to his half-eaten sandwich. “I know that you guys are stronger than I am. I know you’ve been trained to fight since you were all children and I’m just still trying to catch up. But it happened so fast, Noct. I thought I was dead. If you guys hadn’t been there, I would’ve been. If it had been you that got hurt instead, or if it were Ignis or Gladio. I just…” His voice cracked. “I never want to be anywhere near one of those things again.”

“It’s not like we’re picking fights with them, Prompto. And we can’t just run away from them, either, if they’re between us and what we need to do. We don’t have that kind of leisure.”

“I just… Noct, I don’t know how I can fight those things again.” Prompto covered his face with his one usable hand, but his eyes were still wide. “I’ve never been so scared. I know Gladio says it’s cool-looking but every time I look at this scar it will remind me of my failure. It’s proof that I fucked up. Proof that I can’t even protect myself, that I’m a liability to the people I care about most.”

Noctis was quiet. His expression grew dark, like a cloud passing over the sun. “Do you remember what happened to me when I was a kid?”

“You’ve mentioned it in passing but never in much detail.”

Noctis clutched his fist with his other hand. “Niflheim tried to assassinate me when I was eight. I watched nearly a dozen of our attendants, most of whom I knew by name, die in front of me.” He drew a breath. “My nanny, Cunaria… she was like my mother. She shielded me with her body and died holding me in her arms. I still miss her so much it aches.”

Noctis paused for a moment, his gaze turned inward. He looked like he might say more on the subject but instead he continued. “I only barely survived. I was in a coma for weeks and even after that I couldn’t walk for a while. I could barely do anything for myself and was dependent on others for everything. Dad took me to the Holy Springs in Tenebrae to help me heal. Niflheim came for me again there too. I saw Oracle Sylva—Luna’s mom—die that time. There was nothing I could do. I was eight.”

A muscle stood out in Noctis’ jaw. “So now that you got hurt you suddenly realize Niflheim is dangerous? You tell me you’re scared? That you feel helpless?” His eyes were hard. “I _fucking know.”_

Prompto’s words abandoned him. He could do nothing but sit, frozen and staring.

Noctis took a few breaths and his expression began to soften. “How great would it be if we never had to fight Magitek again? But as long as you keep company with the number one guy on Niflheim’s hit list I don’t think that’s in the stars for either of us.”

Prompto was still reeling. “I… Noct, I had no idea…”

“I’m sorry you got hurt, Prompto. I am. But on the bright side, now you can be vice president of the Won’t Stay Murdered by Niflheim Club.” Noctis crossed his arms.

“Well that…” Prompto groped for words, “definitely makes all of my worries seem petty by comparison. Thanks for the perspective. I’m sorry all that stuff happened to you as a kid. That’s… that’s too unfair.”

“We’ll get them back,” said Noctis, “for everything. And for what they did to you.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in sober silence for a minute before Prompto said, “I don’t think I can eat this whole brownie. You’re going to have to help me after all.”

 

* * *

 

Prompto’s leftovers were cleared away and the food was settling in his stomach like a brick. It was if his body didn’t have the energy to do more than one function at a time and now his stomach and his consciousness were having a throwdown over who got to drive.

There was a light knock at the door and Ignis and Gladio were ushered in. Prompto lifted his hand in a feeble greeting.

Noctis swiveled on his stool to face the door. “I was starting to wonder what happened to you. Did you have trouble?”

“We stopped by the market to get a few things for breakfast tomorrow,” said Ignis. “Figured Prompto wouldn’t mind having the company, and you wouldn’t mind getting out of an errand… as usual.”

Gladio sauntered over to Prompto’s bedside. “How you holding up, Champ?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Prompto slurred. “I think in a minute I might get up and do a jig.”

“I believe in you.” He turned to Noctis. “We should head back to the hotel.”

Prompto tried not to pout. “Are you sure you guys can’t stay a bit longer?”

“I seem to remember something about beauty sleep. How are you ever going to be beautiful if this nerd keeps you up?” Gladio gave Noctis a playful shove on the shoulder and the stool rolled across the floor with Noctis still on it.

“Here,” said Noctis, walking himself—still seated—back over to Prompto. He reached under the bed and plucked Prompto’s phone from its basket. “If you want to talk to us you can call or text any time. Okay?” He held it out.

Prompto took the phone with both hands, even though the IV tugged at his arm. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow.”

“Thanks, guys." He clutched the phone. "Thanks for everything today.”

They all said their goodbyes and made their promises to see each other soon. Then the door clicked closed and Prompto was alone.

He stared at the door, as if they might come back.

Prompto hadn’t been truly alone since before this trip started—back in a time when he had a home, and parents, and a future bright with the promise of peace. Since the moment he left the Citadel his friends had never even been out of earshot. He had gotten used to it. Now that everything else in his life had been stripped away, his friends had become his entire world.

Being alone felt weird now. It was too quiet. Too still.

The last bit of color drained from the room as the horizon devoured the setting sun, leaving nothing but bleak artificial light behind. Prompto pulled the covers up to his chin.

The only familiar thing he could see in this alien environment was his phone. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth, black screen. How pathetic would he be if he texted his friends before they even got to their hotel room? He’d spent his entire day being pathetic. He needed to get a grip.

Until a few weeks ago his phone was a reliable source of entertainment and distraction. But the internet fell with Insomnia and he couldn’t even use it to read the news now. Text and calling still worked, and he still had a handful of games. He booted up King’s Knight just long enough to harvest his zell tree. The multiplayer mode only worked as long as he was within a few feet of other players, but at least he could collect today’s allotment of in-game currency. So he did. It wasn’t as fun as he hoped it would be. He turned the screen off.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what Noctis had told him. Even though none of it had been his fault, Noctis was already carrying the burden of many deaths on his shoulders. Yet here he was, still fighting the same empire that had crippled him him, murdered his loved ones, and robbed him of both his autonomy and what should have been the innocence of childhood.

Ignis had been part of the royal household since they were kids, before the assassination attempt and the injury. _Of course_ Ignis would have known all this stuff about Noctis. He would have been affected by it too; surely many of the people who died in the attacks were people Ignis knew as well. But regardless of the losses and sadness, he never shied away from anything. If he ever felt fear, he never showed it.

And Gladio… Gladio was a strong man. He knew how to fight, yet he was covered head to toe in scars. He rarely talked about them, not even the gruesome one across his chest. They just seemed to accrue on his body like a natural phenomenon. What kind of person—or monster—could put that kind of mark in _Gladio’s_ skin?  But despite the countless injuries he had suffered, he was indomitable.

It was obvious in retrospect: all of them understood the risks of their journey in a way Prompto never appreciated. They all knew pain, and loss, and fear. But they kept going anyway. They faced everything head-on and, bolstered by their courage, Prompto had allowed himself a false sense of security. He hadn’t been expecting to come to terms with his own mortality this afternoon. He was retroactively embarrassed by his own naiveté.

Noctis, Ignis, Gladio… there was still so much he didn’t know about his friends. It felt isolating somehow. He wanted to be there for them. Not just as a friend, but also as ...as a member of the Crownsguard. He thought that his training and formal induction meant something, that he at least had the potential to be useful. But instead it was him that needed rescuing.

He felt so tired.

He set the phone to vibrate and set it down on his chest. Now that things were quiet and still, he was starting to feel the tug of exhaustion behind his eyes. It wasn’t long before he slipped into a listless slumber.

And then the nightmares began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medical info for this and subsequent chapters were generously provided by [SpoonerizeSwiftness,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/SpoonerizeSwiftness) my favorite nurse. I'm certain I still have (and will) mess stuff up, so if you're a medical professional, feel free to tell me so. If you're not a medical professional, feel free to tell me so anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

 Noctis didn’t anticipate just how weird it would be in the hotel without Prompto. With nobody to goad them into a game of cards or King’s Knight, or to draw them together to laugh over stupid faces during the nightly photo harvest, or to appraise the personal qualities of all the girls they had seen that day with anyone who would indulge him, everyone had quietly withdrawn into their own activities.

Gladio was leaning on the railing of the balcony, wedged between two bowls of night-blooming flowers, staring pensively into the courtyard below. Ignis was hunched over the sink in the kitchenette with his sleeves rolled up, scrubbing at Prompto’s vest with hydrogen peroxide. Noctis and the map were both stretched out across the bed.

Noctis was glad they’d only need to endure one night of this strangely taciturn atmosphere before they collected Prompto in the morning. Would he be good as new? Or should they change their plans and lay low in Cape Caem for a bit? Maybe, if they had to spend some time relaxing anyway, they could do it by the Vesperpool with fishing poles in hand. Maybe Noctis could sway them with the tantalizing promise of cooler weather.

They currently had some time to kill while their boat was being repaired with a  recently-acquired piece of mythril. It was a good opportunity to continue investigating royal tombs while they were still in Lucis. With life so unpredictable and changing, as it so quick to remind them on a nearly daily basis, nobody could say when they might be back here again. They had to do what they could when they could. The sun wasn’t necessarily shining, but this hay wasn’t going to make itself.

They currently had five royal arms. First was the Sword of the Wise, collected under the heavy smoke of the fires that still smoldered in the east—the remains of everything they once loved.

Second was Axe of the Conqueror, plucked from the toes of Ozymandias in a refuge that was now only fit for spiders.

Third came the Sword of the Wanderer, entombed in ice, just as a child said it would be.

Fourth was the Blade of the Mystic, which Noctis immediately used against a god, to that god’s own great approval.

It certainly hadn’t been boring.

The fifth and most recent acquisition had looked to Noctis like it might actually be straightforward for a change, and that the gods had temporarily forgotten their apparent decree that Nothing Could Ever Be Easy.

The Tomb of the Just was an out-of-the-way rest stop in a place now known as Thommels Glade. It was a place where travelers could stretch their legs on a gravel path through the trees and enjoy a picnic on the tile steps. The resident of the ancient stone vault didn’t mind.

There were no dark labyrinths. No booby traps. No ghouls or imps or giant spiders with human faces. Just a door that opened with an easy twist of a key and a tired groan.

Noctis added the shield to the Armiger with the usual somber ceremony. It was beautiful and ambiguously heartbreaking: a wheel of glass souls welcoming an old friend, celebrating their reunion with the quiet tinkling of crystal.

And with that, they had what they came for. As they stepped back outside, the dark, cool, and quiet of the tomb gave way to light, heat, and the thunderous drone of entirely too many dropships.

Hemmed in on three sides by cliffs, their afternoon was rescheduled for a surprise fight to the death. That death was nearly Prompto’s.

Lately Niflheim had been extending them an olive branch in one hand and a knife in the other, both of them probably poisoned. Today was definitely a knife kind of day.

Noctis had been a thorn in the Empire’s ass since the day he first drew breath, and Niflheim had been working diligently over the last twenty years to correct the problem. It had nearly succeeded on an uncomfortable number of occasions. Now Insomnia was crushed and Lucis was as good as conquered but Noctis was still one obnoxiously large loose end to tie up.

This wasn’t the first time Noctis and the others had met the Empire at the tombs. In a way, it had been the Empire that both led them to the Disc of Cauthess—the most dramatic tomb of all— and, bewilderingly, rescued them from it as the meteor swallowed itself. But, if the Empire hadn’t noticed their pattern of tomb raiding before, it certainly had after that.

Now that the number of Noctis’ allies could be counted on one hand, he was the weakest he’d ever been. It was finally the Empire’s chance to end the line of Lucis for good and Noctis was making it easy for them. It knew he was gathering the Royal Arms, and clearly it knew where the tombs were. He may as well be sending it his damned itinerary. Today’s attack was not an accident; the size and speed was magnitudes from the typical encounters they occasionally blundered into. _Of course_ the Empire would have been waiting for him. He should have expected it. He should have been more cautious.  

Prompto said his scar was a reminder of his failure, but it was really a reminder of Noctis’.

Noctis wished there were a way to make it up to him beyond two packs of cookies from a vending machine.

 

* * *

 

Noctis woke up on his own the next morning—a welcome reprieve from the normal royal antagonism routine the others took turns inflicting on him at the start of every day.

It was abnormally quiet. Noctis peeked out from under his heavy eyelids and saw Gladio sprawling lazily in a chair, a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. The balcony doors were open to let in air while it was still cool, but the breeze was already tinged with the promise of another hot day. The sun was starting to clear the rooftops, letting light creep into the plaza below and decorating it with the coiling shadows of pipes and wires.

“Good mornnaaahhh,” Noctis didn’t even try to suppress his yawn.

“Yo,” said Gladio, who didn’t even look up from his book.

The only sounds were the gentle rustle of a page being turned and the distant noises of Lestallum getting on with its day. But, after a few lazy minutes of entertaining the threat of sleep, it slowly occurred to Noctis he didn’t hear any of the usual bathroom or kitchen noises he expected.

Noctis sniffed loudly and rubbed his eye with the back of his hand. He propped up on one elbow. One leg was still tangled in the one thin blanket that was all that was necessary to ensure a comfortable night here.

“Where’s Ignis?”

“Hospital,” said Gladio as he raised the mug for another sip of coffee.

Noctis frowned. “Without us? Why didn’t you guys wake me up?”

“He was already gone by the time I got up.” Gladio finally tore his attention away from his book and fixed Noctis with an easy look. “We’ve been texting. Ignis says Prompto had a rough night so he’s trying to let him sleep as much as possible. He’ll let us know when’s a good time to head over. Nothing for us to do in the meantime, though.” Gladio took another mouthful of coffee and his eyes fell back into his book. “Thought you’d enjoy sleeping in for a change.”

Well … Gladio wasn’t wrong. Noctis blinked his eyes a few times, as if trying to activate them, and reached for his phone on the nightstand to check the time.

It was a bit past nine—still reasonably early, but three full hours more than he was usually allowed. He wondered how long he’d need to sleep before he actually stopped feeling tired. Ten years, maybe.

With no small amount of guilt he scrolled through the text messages that he had, shamefully, slept though. Judging by the timestamps, Prompto had spent the entire night alternating between sleep and fury. Most of the messages were variations on “I hate this,” “I hate this place,” and “I hate everything.” Sometime after two in the morning the complaints became more specific, with indignant outrage over the fact that he was now sick, on top of everything else, and he couldn’t rest between his wild fever dreams and the nurses waking him every two to take everything from his temperature to blood samples. There were also some downright embarrassing displays of self-pity thrown in for flavor.

Noctis hauled himself into a sitting position, untangled himself from the bedding, and shambled over to where Gladio was sitting.

On the coffee table was a colorful spread of breakfast snacks: cubes of pineapple and melon, glistening slices of starfruit, Duscaen oranges sliced crossways like stained-glass windows, bright red rambutans and purple mangosteens with their skins scored for easy peeling. Beside it was a platter of charcuterie—a variety of meats Noctis couldn’t recognize, marbled with fat and spices and sliced thin, some folded into ruffles and others coiled into loose rosettes. There was also a small collection of cheese morsels of various hues, and some handmade wheat crackers from the market.

There were two plates with tiny forks laid out, clearly intended for a morning (and afternoon) of casual grazing. Noctis could see that Gladio had been doing his share already.

“You get up before six, right?” said Noctis, with his eyebrows perching on his forehead in an uncertain expression. “When did Ignis have time to do this?”

“Guess he didn’t sleep much, either,” Gladio said absently, once again absorbed in his book.

Noctis’ appetite was awakening ahead of the rest of him.  He wrapped an oily slice of meat around a cube of cheese and slumped into a leather armchair to devour it. _Not a bad way to start the morning,_ he thought while idly staring out the open window. He noticed that Prompto’s clothes, which Ignis had washed and hung to dry on the balcony, were now absent.

_Wouldn’t mind doing this on normal occasions instead of ones like these._

Without Ignis there to scold him, Noctis picked fruit and meat directly from the platters with his fingers until his hunger was satisfied. After breakfast he changed into some fresh clothes and spent some quality time with the bathroom mirror, arranging and rearranging his hair into exciting new shapes, since he had the time.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. It was Ignis.

Noctis answered with a swipe of his finger. “Mornin’ ”

“Thank goodness you picked up. We need to talk. In person.”

“Is everything alright?”

“No.”

 

* * *

 

Noctis’ chest was tight with anticipation as he and Gladio rode the hospital elevator in silence. Ignis hadn’t explained anything on the phone, only gave them instructions to meet on the roof.

The elevator eased to a stop at the top floor and released them into a small, empty room with a lonely metal door on the opposite wall. The door clattered as Noctis pushed it open. A crack of light turned into a deluge. Noctis took a few steps into the sun, temporarily blinded.

As his eyes adjusted, an unexpected sight came into focus all around him: he was surrounded by plants. The whole roof was a garden.

Behind him was the building from which he had just emerged—a cube of concrete just big enough for the elevator and stairwell to fit inside. Its green plaster exterior was almost completely concealed behind enormous sprays of hot pink bouganvilleas. Noctis felt like he’d walked out of one bouquet and directly into another.

Before him stretched a path leading to the center of the roof where a fountain rose in three round tiers, ringed by concrete benches. Walkways radiated out from the fountain like spokes, vanishing between planters overflowing with exotic tropical flowers. Noctis could see the sharp fronds of ground palms mixed into leaves of every hue of green and purple. The garden was sprinkled everywhere with dots and bunches of brilliant red, the likes of spears of flowering ginger and soft-petaled hibiscus.

Above him was a vast and unmarred dome of blue. While the hospital was not the tallest building in Lestallum, it maintained the second highest altitude by virtue of being built into a cliff face, lording over everything in town except the Exineris tower. From here it enjoyed one hell of a view.

As Noctis traced the horizon from the power plant to the Disc of Cauthess, his eyes snagged on Ignis at one edge of the roof.

Ignis was framed by two of the concrete merlons that ran along the edge of the roof, forming the boundary between garden and sky. He was hunched with his forearms against the handrail, gazing in the direction of the canyon. When the door to the elevator room slammed itself closed behind Gladio, Ignis startled visibly, as if breaking out of a spell.

The three met at the fountain. Ignis gestured for Noctis and Gladio to sit on a bench, then took a seat across from them on the fountain’s edge.

Ignis looked as composed as always, but there were subtle signs of stress that Noctis could detect after sixteen years of practice. Ignis’ eyes were dark and aged, as they sometimes were after long and sleepless nights. His face was incrementally more pale than usual, making the freckles on his cheeks and forehead stand out. He took just a few seconds too long to clean his glasses before replacing them on his face, a sign he was buying time while he figured out what to say.

Noctis couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “What’s going on, Ignis?”

Ignis blinked slowly. “Prompto is… sick.”

“Obviously,” said Noctis, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I—yes. Well.”

“The suspense is killing me,” said Gladio.

Ignis exhaled through pursed lips, like an exercise in self-control. “Prompto’s health took a turn this morning. He’s developed … a very grave infection.”

“What kind of infection?” Gladio asked, cautiously.

“Can you be more specific?” joined Noctis. “How bad is it? Help us out here.”

Ignis looked Noctis in the eye for a moment, then dropped his gaze back to the ground. “When Prompto was injured,” he started, haltingly, “his blood was badly contaminated from the wound. It’s… not uncommon with injuries like his, which is why he was being held for observation.”

Ignis twined his fingers together pensively. “Prompto developed a fever and other symptoms of infection early this morning. The tests have confirmed that he has bacteria in his blood, circulating everywhere. Now he’s suffering a severe immune response, known as sepsis...” He paused. “No, ‘severe’ is the wrong word. I meant ‘catastrophic.’ ”

Noctis’ brows bunched together. “But isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? Your immune system fights the infection, right?”

“Normally yes, but it can go too far. Prompto’s immune system is destroying his body along with the infection. It’s akin to trying to kill a cockroach by burning down the house.”

“But he was fine last night,” Noctis protested. “How did it get so bad so fast? That doesn’t make sense!”

“Sepsis is swift. It comes on quickly and is difficult to combat, even when there’s medicine.”

“Wh—” Noctis felt the breath rush out of him. There were implications to that sentence that Ignis may not have intended. “What do you mean, _‘even when there’s medicine?’_ ”

Ignis fingers tightened tightened around each other. He clenched his jaw for a moment. “Normally the treatment involves an aggressive dose of antibiotics, but that’s not an option for us.”

“Why?”

Ignis looked as tense as a violin string. His whole body was straight lines. “After Insomnia fell, a surge of refugees came to Lestallum. Many of them had been injured in the attack. In the course of treating their injuries, this hospital ran out of various medications,” he inhaled, “among them the antibiotics Prompto needs.”

“Can’t we get more?”

“They’ve called around everywhere. Nobody has any to spare. The only stockpile was in the Crown City, where it was produced, and now that’s gone as well. Any imports from Accordo have been intercepted by the embargo. There simply isn’t any medication left.”

“What about magical options?” Noctis pleaded, “like remedies. Aren’t remedies supposed to be good for poison and stuff?”

“He’s not poisoned,” Ignis said, patiently. “The bacteria in his system is part of a normal human body, it’s just in the wrong place. Remedies and antidotes don’t damage gut flora, otherwise you’d get sick every time you used one. They can’t do anything about this.”

“What about elixirs or potions?”

“His organs are already strained as far as they can go. Another elixir at this point could kill him before the sepsis does. As for potion, he’s getting some now, intravenously. It won’t cure anything but it might bolster him enough to hang on bit longer.”

Noctis opened his mouth as if to keep arguing, but no words came out. His face was twisted into an inscrutable expression as a hundred emotions vied for position and cancelled each other out. Hang on a bit longer? What the hell did that mean?

Gladio was the first to speak again. “What’s the prognosis?”

“At his current stage he has a sixty percent chance of survival.”

“Sixty percent…” Noctis said, grasping at slippery threads of hope, “that’s not great, but it’s not terrible, right?”

“That’s assuming he spontaneously starts recovering on his own, miraculously, starting now. Noctis, he…” Ignis grit his teeth and looked at the ground again, “he’s crashing hard. His organs are failing. He’s not responding to treatment. Without proper medication, his chance of survival is plunging by the hour. Realistically… the outlook is not good.”

Noctis felt numb, like he had suddenly misplaced his sense of reality. This wasn’t right. He must have misunderstood something. This was a terrible joke.

He tried to swallow and it hurt. Something was tearing up inside of his ribcage.

Gladio spoke again, barely more than a whisper, “How much time does he have?”

Ignis replied in the same tone. “About day. Two at most.”

The conversation stumbled into silence. Noctis felt like someone had replaced his blood with tar. His lungs were too heavy to operate properly.

“W—what do we do now?” he wrestled out, finally.

Ignis was stiff as a gravestone. “Pray.”

“There must be something we can do.”

“The doctors are already doing everything in their power.”

“No, there’s gotta be something!” Noctis lurched to his feet. “There must be! Some extra medicine somewhere, or more potions, _something!”_

Gladio fixed him with a look. “Noct, you’re being unreasonable.”

 _“You’re_ being unreasonable!” Noctis snapped. “I can’t believe you’re giving up so easily! What’s _wrong_ with you!?” He wheeled on Ignis. “And _you._ Did you know this was going to happen?”

“I—” Ignis stammered, “as I said, it’s not uncommon—”

“Why didn’t you _tell me?”_

“Why? So you could pace a hole through the floor with worry?”

“Why are _you_ allowed to do it and not me?!”

This time Ignis’ eye contact was unwavering and his words were hard. “I didn’t know whether or not the infection would take, and I certainly didn’t know there wasn’t any medication. What good would it have done to have gotten you wound up?”

“I could have—” Noctis stumbled, remembering the look on Prompto’s face last night. “I could have spent more time with him.” He thought of a dozen preferable directions for that conversation. _“Better_ time.”

“Letting him rest and keeping him calm was the best thing for him.”

 _“No!”_ Noctis shouted, “the best thing for him would be if this had never happened in the first place! We should have kept a better eye on him in the fight. We should have expected the attacks would get worse. The best thing for him would have been to _never let him come_ on this _stupid trip!!”_ He was shaking with anger. “We should have left him in Hammerhead. If he weren’t with _us,_ this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Noct—”

 _“Aaaargh!_ This is such _fucking bullshit!!”_ Noctis lunged away from the bench. Gladio grabbed for his arm as he passed but Noctis wrenched it away, out of reach.

He crossed the patio in what felt like three steps and flung the door open with a heavy slam of metal. He had no patience to wait for the elevator so he took the stairs two at a time. When he was halfway down the first flight of stairs he heard the door bang open above him.

“Noct!” Gladio’s stern voice reverberated in the stairwell.

Noctis was done with conversation. He had _had it._ He leaned over the banister and looked down. The stairs were not flush as they doubled back on themselves. There was a gap between the railings about six inches wide, where Noctis could see all the way down to the ground floor.

It was big enough.

He felt the familiar electric prickle roll down his forearm and a flash of light burst into his palm in the shape of a dagger. He held it over the gap and let it drop.

In the seconds it took the dagger to plunge several dozen storeys to the ground floor, Gladio was already bounding down the stairs. He reached out with both hands and grabbed at Noctis—

—who slammed against the ground floor gracelessly, rolled twice, and sprawled to a stop on his side. The dagger drop had been clumsy. The warp was uncoordinated. But, as Noctis dragged himself up and dusted off his clothes, he found the only thing that was injured was his dignity.

Gladio’s roar of frustration echoed down the stairs.

Noctis pushed open the door and let himself into the busy, well-lit hallway of the hospital, then out the front door and into the blinding sun once again.

He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care. He took a left down a wide alley between two banks of buildings, striding down the flagstone stairs with giant steps.

His fists were clenched so tightly he could feel it in his shoulders. Gods, he wanted to fight something. He wished all this shit was a problem he could solve by shoving a sword into it. Or maybe even just a problem he could solve _at all._

He bared his teeth and kicked a helpless sack of garbage against the wall. It made a gentle crunching noise and toppled over, utterly unsatisfying. He fixed his attention on the dumpster next to it, lifted his knee and stomped the side of the dumpster with a dreadful and resounding _BANG!_ He did it again, harder this time, with a wordless shout of anger, and heard things crashing around inside. He kicked it over and over, faster, stronger, losing himself in the cacophony. _BANG! BANG! BANG!!_

A large hand touched his upper arm. He lashed it away, with eyes flashing like a wild animal. _“Don’t touch me!”_ he snarled.

Gladio was staring back with a look of furious disapproval. _“Stop._ We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”

 _“Fuck your low profile!”_ growled Noctis, kicking the dumpster once more for good measure.

Gladio grabbed his upper arm again, and that’s as far as he got before Noctis twisted, shifted his center of gravity, and threw an unrestrained fist at Gladio’s face.

Gladio reflexively jerked to the side and snatched the punch out mid air, just milliseconds before it connected. Noctis tried to draw his arm back but Gladio’s fingers tightened around his wrist. Noctis threw a second punch at Gladio’s face with his free hand but Gladio was expecting it this time.

Gladio snagged the second arm, did something fast and complicated, and trapped Noctis in a hold. Noctis was now facing away from him and his arms, chest, and one of his legs were completely immobilized.

Noctis howled with rage and thrashed with the full violence of his considerable anger.

Despite his height, weight, and strength advantage, it was all Gladio could do to keep them both upright. It took nearly two whole minutes of this fruitless escape attempt before Noctis finally tired himself out. Gladio held Noctis firmly and warily as they both panted, in case Noctis was regrouping for round two.

Noctis’ breathing slowed and wilted into a long sigh of defeat.

“Let me go.” It was a request this time, not a demand.

Gladio released him carefully so he wouldn’t fall. Without looking back, Noctis walked a few paces and sat down heavily on a flagstone step.

Gladio joined him, but stayed on the opposite side of the alley, out of arm’s reach.

They both sat in silence. Noctis had no desire to look at Gladio, and from what he could tell in his peripheral vision, it was mutual.

The buildings on either side of the alley rose up like dark canyon walls and framed a slice of the view like bookends. Noctis and Gladio could see the city stretching out below them, an indecipherable mass of wires, pipes, and crenelated rooftops. The wind shifted and brought the scent of garbage and fried meat. An electrical trolley the size of a bus trundled slowly across the sky on the cable ropeway, whining mechanically in the distance. They watched it until it had crept out of sight behind a building.

“Wanna go see Prompto?” Gladio said.

Noctis shut his eyes. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Prompto’s new room in the ICU maintained the same bleak color scheme and slightly disheveled aesthetic as the last one, but without the benefit of warm natural light to offset its cold indifference to human suffering. Indeed, there were no windows aside from the ones that exposed him to the hallway, where the nurses could keep half an eye on him from a distance while they performed their other duties.

This new room was larger than the other, capable of accommodating a crowd of doctors, machines, and crash carts as necessary. But at the moment the only thing that filled the room was the sound of whirring machines and hollow, rhythmic beeping. The large volume of empty space only served to make Prompto look very small.

A nurse closed the door behind Noctis and Gladio with a click. Prompto opened his eyes halfway to look at them, then his eyes lit with recognition and a weak smile crawled onto his face.

He looked different than he had last night, which was only partially due to the new collection of stuff in, on, and around him. He was wrapped in enough cables and tubes to rival a Lestallum rooftop.

Most of him was buried under stratas of heavy blankets, though his two bare arms lay on top, goosebumps prickling around a blood pressure cuff on his bicep and the tape strapping the IV against the delicate skin of his inner arm. Several thin cables emerged from of the neck of his gown and wandered into a heart monitor by his bed, where blue and green numbers flashed on screen beside their corresponding jagged lines. A tube stretched under his nose and hooked in place over each ear to supplement his shallow breaths with extra oxygen. Not even his fingertip escaped his new hospital trappings and was clamped in the grip of a pulse oximeter.

Now there were three bags of saline hanging from the rack instead of just one, and beside them a smaller pouch that contained a translucent teal liquid and seemed to emit a faint glow. Noctis didn’t recognize the word on the label, but he assumed it must be the potion Ignis mentioned.

Despite the new equipment, Prompto looked about as bad as he did when they scraped him off the ground the day before. He appeared fragile, wan, and exhausted beyond reason.

“Hey,” said Noctis, pulling over a plastic chair. Gladio did the same on the Prompto’s other side.

“Hey guys.” Prompto’s voice was weak. “I’m glad to see you.” He gave them a half-hearted smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Prompto was lying flat on his back with his face toward the ceiling. His pillow barely supported his head enough for him to look at Noctis and Gladio properly.

“Would you like me to prop the bed up for you?” Noctis asked, pointing to the electric bed controls with his chin.

“N-no. Thanks. It took forever to get comfortable. It doesn’t hurt as long as I don’t move.”

“Your scar?” asked Gladio.

“My _everything._ Everything hurts. Chest ... stomach … skin … It hurts so bad.”

Noctis wrinkled his forehead. “Aren’t they giving you painkillers?”

“Said they’re already giving me the strongest stuff they have. It … sounds like they’re out of a lot of things,” Prompto said, carefully.

“How are you holding up, otherwise?”

“Dude, I feel like _ass._ Like five asses. Like an entire bushel of asses.” Prompto’s face was drawn. “This _sucks.”_

“You could say that...”

Prompto sized them up, studiously. “You look glum.”

“How else are we supposed to look?” said Noctis.

“You talked to Ignis, huh?”

“...Yeah.”

“Surprised he’s not with you, by the way. Is he coming later?”

“He didn’t already stop by?”

“Haven’t seen him since they moved me. He’s been with me a lot today. Maybe he’s getting tired of being here. _I_ sure am.”

“None of us mind being here with you, Prompto.” Gladio said it gently, but with conviction.

“Heh. Thanks. But there hasn’t been much for him to do most of the time except watch me sleep. I just can’t seem to stay awake for very long… even though I want to.”

“You should probably get as much as much sleep as you can,” said Gladio. “You probably need it.”

“Yeah, but my dreams have been really screwed up. I guess it’s the fever? They’re real scary. And then I wake up back here,” he flipped his hands palms-up to gesture at the room, “and I remember everything all over again. It’s like waking up into another nightmare.” He closed his eyes and took a labored breath. “I just want to wake up in a reality where everything is normal and nothing hurts.”

Noctis agreed so hard he thought his heart would break.

 

* * *

 

The rules of the Intensive Care Unit were different than those of General Admission and Noctis found his ass thoroughly chapped over the ten-minute time limits for visitors. It wasn’t enough. No matter how many ten-minute visits they could cram in these one or two remaining days, it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing shy of a long and natural lifetime’s worth of companionship would ever be acceptable.

That said, Prompto’s energy was already flagging by minute eight and they reluctantly parted company to let him sleep.

Untethered by schedule, agenda, or destination, Noctis and Gladio wandered through town together in silence. They found themselves at the viewpoint and lingered there without speaking, privately searching for solutions in the wide stretch of scenery. When the sun became too hot to bear they retired to the darkness of their room at the Leville. Noctis lay face-down on the mattress. Gladio resumed his place in the chair, where the open book in his lap lay unread and ignored.

The rattling of the twin fans on the wall was the only noise for hours.

There was still no sign of Ignis. He might still be on the hospital roof for all they knew. Noctis texted a curt “where are you?” and received an equally brief reply that just said, “Shopping.” He stopped caring.

Noctis and Gladio returned to the hospital as soon as the ICU rules would allow. This time the nurse warned them in advance that Prompto had been a little confused. It was just part of the process, she said.

Noctis didn’t ask her what process she was referring to.

Prompto was a little slower on the uptake this time and didn’t seem to register their arrival until they were already sitting down and talking to him. He seemed pleasantly surprised to see them, then his eyes tracked over to the door.

“He’s not with us this time,” said Noctis.

“...Who?” said Prompto, distractedly.

“...Ignis?”

“Oh. Right. No, I haven’t seen him.”

Noctis and Gladio exchanged glances.

“Are you expecting someone else?” Gladio asked.

“Uh, no. It’s nothing.” Prompto turned his attention back to them. “I’m glad to see you Noct, Gladio. How are you?”

Gladio snorted. _“We’re_ fine. What about you, though?”

“What did you guys do today?” said Prompto instead.

“Uh…” said Noctis, “not much. Took a walk.”

“What’s it like outside?”

“Hot… I guess?”

“Did you get something to eat? A kebab? Or something from a cart?”

“No…”

“Oh. Too bad.” He sighed. “Let me come with you next time.”

“Get better, then.”

“Don’t rush me. I’m working on it.”

Prompto’s eyes were back on the door and scanning the faces of the people in the hallway outside.

Noctis turned to follow his gaze but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He turned back to Prompto and said, “who are you waiting for?”

“Shouldn’t they be here by now?”

“Who?”

“My _parents,”_ said Prompto, giving Noctis a look like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Somebody called them, right?”

“Uh,” said Noctis, as all his useful thoughts flew out the back of his head.

“I know they’re busy but… if they got a call from the hospital… right?” Prompto looked at Noctis with sincere perplexion in his eyes. “I’m their kid, aren’t I?”

Noctis tried to freeze his face to stop whatever expression was frantically trying to climb onto it. Gladio wiped his hands down his cheeks and his trailing fingers exposed a wide-eyed expression that was pointedly not looking at anyone or anything.

Sweet merciful six. This was too cruel.

“I’m sure they’re on their way, so just h-” his voice caught, “hang on, okay?”

Prompto looked so disappointed. “Yeah...ungh.” He tensed up, clenched his eyes, and grimaced.

“...Does it hurt?”

Prompto didn’t reply until the wave passed and he let out the shaky breath he’d been holding. “Y-yeah.” He was panting. “Sorry about all this.”

“About what?”

“I really messed up this time. I’m sorry.”

“Dude. Shut up. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“This isn’t your fault. I don’t want to hear it.”

Prompto closed his mouth. His expression, like that of a scolded child, only lingered for a second before it crinkled up again under another wave of pain.

Noctis reached out and put his hand on Prompto’s. It was cool. He gripped Prompto’s fingers and squeezed in an attempt to warm them up.

Prompto didn’t react. His eyes were closed and he lay back into his pillows, his breath coming fast and shallow.

Prompto’s normal swoop of hair was limp around his face like threshed wheat. Or, at least, what Noctis assumed threshed wheat looked like. He realized he had never actually seen a field of wheat in person, only in photos. His sheltered and mostly comfortable life in the heart of the city left gaps in his life experiences.

As he clung to Prompto’s limp hand, knowing soon he’d have to let it go, he realized that some experiences were fine left unexplored.

He wondered if Prompto had ever seen a wheat field.

Too late now.

“Don’t worry.”

Noctis looked up at Prompto, who hadn’t moved. With eyes still closed, face still turned to the ceiling, Prompto said it again, softly. “Don’t worry, Noct. I’ll be okay.”

Noctis felt the world fall out from under him.

“I’ll be right back.” He stood up so quickly his chair squeaked against the floor.

“Where are you going?” said Gladio.

Noctis didn’t know and didn’t care to explain. He said nothing as he wrenched open the door and lurched into the hallway, turning sideways barely in time to avoid a nurse.

His thoughts were collapsing like an avalanche, roaring and ripping out everything in its path. Everything was coming apart. He just needed some space. He couldn’t think. He just needed a minute to pull himself together. He just needed to catch his breath.

Everything was just too much.

When he came to his senses, he was standing in front of the rooftop fountain. The feet that carried him here had run out of ideas, just like the rest of him.

He looked around. He was alone, since any sensible person would be inside, taking shelter from the oppressive late-afternoon heat.

He sat on one of the benches. It was quiet up here aside from the rolling slap of water that fell in uncoordinated sheets from one tier to another. He stared into it. It had been barely half a day since he’d first seen this fountain and already everything had changed.

Noctis slumped with his elbows on his knees, gripping his hands like he were pleading.

This morning he had been so sure that everything would be fine by now. They put Prompto back together, after all. They got him to a hospital. He got new blood. That was supposed to fix him, right?

But Prompto died in that field after all. It just took this long to find out.

It was so unfair. Of all of them, Prompto deserved this the least.

Noctis’ eyes burned, and when he closed them tears streaked down to the tip of his nose. He swallowed and it hurt. His whole chest felt like someone had torn it open and left everything exposed.

This was not the first time Noctis had lost someone he cared about. It wasn’t even the first time _recently_. In all of his experiences, loss was swift and unexpected. It was something that struck without warning and severed parts of him that were more dear than his own limbs.

This was the first time he saw death coming. He would have expected it to be easier somehow, being able to say goodbye and make his peace. He didn’t get that opportunity with his dad. That particular wound was still so fresh and raw Noctis didn’t know if it would ever heal. Perhaps he’d spend the rest of his life wishing he’d said some things and unsaid others.  

Now he had the chance with Prompto. He thought it would be easier but it wasn’t. This was a new, different, and wholly unknown kind of suffering. The rest of their time together could now be measured in ten-minute increments. One of these visits would be the last.

He thought it would be easier, but this was by far one the most difficult things he’d ever had to do.

He leaned his face into his palms. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but it snagged on something halfway and came back out torn and jagged. The tears slipped through his fingers to wet the back of his hands.

Noctis had so few things left. In less than a month he’d lost nearly everything: his everyday life, his sense of security, anything that had ever been familiar or comfortable. His city, his country, his only family.

And even after all of that, life still found one more thing to take.

His hitching breaths mounted into the sobs he had been repressing all this time.

They had been so close. Things were starting to stabilize. They had the blessings of the Archaen, and then the Fulgurian. As soon as the boat was ready they were nearly, finally, achingly, going to meet Luna at last.

Oh gods above. _Luna_. Prompto had been looking forward to meeting her so badly. The closer they got to sailing the more he brought it up. And now with success so close they could almost touch it, everything was coming apart like a spiderweb made of sand.

Prompto will never be able to meet Luna now.

There are so many things he’ll never be able to do.

Noctis crumpled under the weight of everything and folded in half. He wept like his soul was being torn to ribbons.

It _was._

 _I’m so sorry, Prompto,_ he thought. _I’m so sorry you won’t be able to meet Luna. I’m sorry you won’t be able to take all the pictures you wanted._

Sometime in the next two days, Prompto would end his life confused, scared, in pain, in a place he hates. He’d never again enjoy a meal with everyone by the fireside. Never again see the sun or the stars. Never again stand on his own two feet.

_I’m so sorry. It’s only because you’re my friend. It’s only because you were trying to help me._

_And I can’t do anything for you._

He keened into his palms with the compounded force of a lifetime’s worth of heartbreak. He wept for Prompto. He wept for his father. He wept for himself.

He was so alone.

He sobbed until he’d shaken every last mote of breath from his body, then kept going. His ribs hurt. His throat hurt. His heart hurt.

Every time he started calming down, he’d take a few deep breaths and throw himself into a new round.

Every time he thought he was out of tears, they just kept coming.

_No. Shh._

He had to calm down. If he kept this up for another month it might start to be enough, but he was exhausting himself. He couldn’t waste Prompto’s precious time like this. There would be more opportunities for crying later.

Unfortunately.

He breathed in and out until he could do it smoothly, reliably. He sat up straight and stared vacantly at the fountain. Stray tears dripped off his chin and evaporated on the hot tile below.

He was hollow inside. He felt like everything important had been stripped out and left him ruined. He blinked slowly. His eyes still burned.

He should get back downstairs before anyone came looking for him. What would Gladio think if he saw him now? The King of Lucis, crying like a child.

He rose from his bench and walked robotically over to the fountain. He dipped his hands up to the wrist into the water and held them there, enjoying the shock of cold—a welcome contrast to the ovenlike heat radiating from the concrete tiles. He let the water swirl between his fingers for a moment before he drew them out and pressed them against his cheeks. The cold was soothing.

He dipped his hands again, then drew his wet fingers through his hair, peeling it away from his face and slicking it back. He repeated the process, pressing cool palms against his forehead, then his neck. The sudden cold against his skin gave him something else to focus on.

He breathed a long, weary sigh.

His hair and face were dry and relatively normal by the time he pulled open the metal door. The wait for the elevator gave his eyes time to adjust to the dark. It was cool in here, but his skin still radiated the heat from outdoors.

He rode the elevator back to the ICU. He wondered if Prompto was even going to be awake to see him. His heart was a tangle of yearning, apprehension, and sorrow.

As he approached he could see that there was activity in Prompto’s room. The door was open. There were too many people. Something was happening.

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, no no no. This was too soon. It was just too soon. He wasn’t ready.

He stumbled into the room. The doctor was here, and nurses. They had hands on Prompto and were fussing with his equipment.

Against one wall was Gladio, staying out of the way.

Against the other wall, also being attended by a nurse, was…

Ignis.

He had his glasses in one hand and an ice pack in the other. The nurse was swabbing the blood off a large, fresh bruise across his high and elegant cheekbone.

Noctis looked back to Gladio, seeking understanding. Gladio smiled at him. It was a pure and genuine smile.

Nothing made any sense.

Noctis’ attention was suddenly seized by the movement of the nurses. They moved aside and he could see something new on the IV rack. It could have been mistaken for another bag of saline at a glance, but it sparkled and flashed like liter of jubilant fireflies. It was prismatic and glittering, casting flecks of light around the room. A liquid disco ball.

He couldn’t look away. His words came out slowly, cautiously. “What is that?”

Ignis’ voice was steady when he said:

“It’s the medicine.”

It was the most beautiful thing Noctis had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♥ Thank you all so much for your encouragement so far! ♥


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